Trending in the right direction for final

Paul Fitzpatrick

Football has a habit of throwing up symmetries.

Cootehill Celtic clubman Aidan McCabe was in the opposing dug-out in 2012 when his club lost the Intermediate Championship final to Lacken – the other Celtics in the county – and now, 14 years later, he is attempting to guide the Crowe Park men back out of Junior at the first attempt.

For a proud club which had never previously operated at Junior level, last year’s relegation was a painful one. But McCabe, who was involved with Lacken for the relegation play-off, says there was no sense of denial and no wallowing in self-pity. All involved regrouped and just went at it again.

“You could get the sense and the determination from speaking to them last November and December that they were hurt, they were embarrassed about the slide. I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn by saying that.

“There was no one saying, ‘This shouldn’t have happened,’ or that they were too good. It was, ‘This is where we are now and we don’t want to be here for too much longer.’

“It’s a big task because I think in the last 13 years, Kill came down and won it straight away against Arva and Drumlane twice have done it. How many other years then, whoever has come down, haven’t been able to do it?”

Challenge

That was the challenge McCabe and his players accepted when they sat down on December 1 last and mapped out their season. Almost 10 months later, they are exactly where they wanted to be, preparing to face Templeport in the Junior Championship final.

“There’s 13 teams in Junior in Cavan and there’s two left. I’m sure there’s probably seven or eight that would love to be here or would have had ambitions of being here. There was no foregone conclusion for us to be here, so we’re delighted to be here.”

For McCabe personally, victory would complete a notable hat-trick. He previously managed Knockbride to the Cavan Junior Championship and led Blackhill Emeralds to the Monaghan and Ulster Junior titles.

His latest assignment has not been straightforward. Lacken endured an injury-ravaged league campaign, at one stage having three players sidelined with broken legs, while other key figures were unavailable.

“We had probably our strongest team out for round one of the Ulster League in February and then our hand that we were able to play grew tighter and smaller because we just kept picking up injuries.

“Our performances in the league weren’t good enough. We had opportunities against Lavey and against Laragh where it was a draw at half-time and we fell off in the second half. A win in either one of those games would have been enough to keep us up.”

There were, however, signs of what was to come. Lacken performed well against Ballyhaise and Butlersbridge before defeating Shercock. In all, they took five league points from the top three sides in the division, a highly unusual statistic for a team who ended up demoted.

“We were the only team to beat Killygarry this year until Cuchulainns beat them there on Friday. Five points would have been enough to stay up out of a relegation play-off in Divisions 1 and 3.

“We didn’t want to be relegated but it wasn’t a horrific league in terms of performance. It was definitely something that we could hang our hat on. We were trending the right way and we were getting stronger.”

The return of players from abroad strengthened the hand considerably. Killian Galligan, Thomas Galligan, James Galligan, David Wilson, Ryan Coyle, Donal McSorley were back in the sky blue, and other players’ form improved greatly.

“There are a couple of lads that have really, really stood up and that has added to everything as much as Thomas or Daithi or Ryan coming home. That’s just lifted the standard of training through the roof.”

Lacken’s championship record bears that out. McCabe points out that across six games and more than 400 minutes of football, his side have spent remarkably little time trailing.

“Maybe sometimes we are held to a bit of a different standard, which I understand.

“Six games, 400-odd minutes, I think we have been behind for 15 minutes out of it, maybe in a draw for another 10. I think that’s pretty good.”

Things to improve on? There are plenty, he says, noting that Lacken had 22 shots in the first half of the semi-final against Belturbet, scoring seven.

“There’s definitely things that we need to tighten up on,” McCabe stressed.

And he is under no illusions about the threat Templeport will pose. While Lacken carried obvious expectations into the competition, their final opponents were not as widely tipped at the outset.

McCabe, though, sees nothing surprising about their presence on the biggest day of the Junior Championship season.

“You look at their clips, you look at what they’re about, you look at their personnel, their skills on the ball, their technical ability. It’s easy then to see why they’re in a Championship final.

“Maybe they weren’t heralded beforehand about being there but you can see how, when the minors were able to focus on senior football exclusively, they’re in the final.

“There’s a lot there that we need to mind and watch and if we offer up poor elements of our game, there’s a team there really ready to hurt us.”

One of McCabe’s biggest headaches is deciding who gets the opportunity from the start.

“We have 15 boys that will start, we have low 20s that could or should start and we have about 10 subs that could definitely say, ‘I’m putting on my boots to come on here today and I’m just waiting on my chance.’

“Some of them haven’t got on yet or some of them haven’t gotten on for a game or two, so it’s a great thing, we have options if something is needed rather than ‘we have our first sub, our second sub, our third sub and they’re coming on no matter what’.

“We’ve great options and, like I said earlier, that drives the standard of training. We just need to make sure that we make that count.”